214. THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



before the last apple blossoms are gone in the orchards ; cherries 

 come next, then the early apricots and plums ; the procession goes 

 on month after month, even after the leaves fall. Late apples, 

 pears, and Japanese persimmons mark the California December, 

 mingling as they do with the ripening oranges and lemons and a 

 few figs hanging on the leafless trees. 



Although the details of the orchard work vary considerably 

 in different parts of California, the more important elements are 

 much the same everywhere. The winter work of pruning is suc- 

 ceeded by the spring work of cultivation and the summer work of 

 harvest. A highly organized system has been developed ; labor- 

 saving machinery is used to a great and increasing extent; and 

 the actual cost of producing a pound of fruit can be proved to 

 have lessened every year. One hesitates to say how cheaply fruit 

 can be grown under favorable circumstances by intelligent Amer- 

 icans who know the business. Men are becoming rich at prices 

 that ten years ago would have seemed ruinous. Of course, there 

 is a limit to the process of cheapening production, but the end is 

 still far off. The planting and culture of orchards ; the thinning 

 of green fruit ; the gathering, handling, packing, shipping, and 

 marketing of ripe fruit ; the canning, drying, preserving, and other 

 methods of utilizing fruit products all these are in a process of 

 continuous evolution. 



The foregoing glimpses of the subject indicate more than the 

 beginnings of a great industry. Whoever visits California will 

 see surprisingly vast and imposing results in concrete forms. 

 Valley after valley, town after town live by the toil of the or- 

 chardist and vineyardist. The sight is a cheering one, because 

 successful fruit culture requires a high degree of skill and intel- 

 ligence, a thickly settled rural community, and especial facilities 

 for communication with all that these things imply. The road- 

 improvement societies are little needed in California fruit colo- 

 nies. Sometimes the macadamized and sprinkled highways extend 

 six or eight miles out of the town to the very edge of the orchards ; 

 then, as the wheat fields are reached, they degenerate into very 

 ordinary country roads. 



But the educational requirements of this specialized industry 

 extend into new departments of science, and are continually de- 

 veloping so rapidly that only a few trained observers can take 

 note of the advance. Horticulture, applied to the daily needs of 

 such industries as I have described, leaves its servants no time to 

 dream dreams about possibilities of orchard life a century or 

 even a decade hence. Multitudes of perplexing problems of cul- 

 ture and management arise, but two great tasks are always with 

 the educated orchardist or vineyardist. One, briefly stated, is, 

 " Can I produce new and vastly superior varieties by cross- fer till- 



